Courses - Autumn 2021

German 1101.01 • German I

4 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

GE Foreign Language course
Introduction to language and culture of the German-speaking world, with emphasis placed on the acquisition of basic communication skills in cultural context. CEFR Levels A1/A2. Not open to native speakers of this language through regular course enrollment or EM credits, or to students with 2 or more years of study in this language in high school, except by permission of dept.
Text: Impuls Deutsch 1

German 1102.01 • German II

4 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

GE Foreign Language course
Continued development of German-language skills and cultural knowledge for effective communication. Emphasis on more advanced language structures, sustained interactions, reading and writing. CEFR Levels A2/B1. Not open to native speakers of this language.
Prereq: 1101.01, or 4 sem cr hrs of 1101.51 or 1101.61.
Text: Netzwerk A1 & A2

German 1103.01 • German III

4 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

GE Foreign Language course
Development of skills for independent use of German. Discussions, presentations, writing, & listening/viewing activities that address topics of contemporary German-speaking world. CEFR Level B1. Not open to native speakers of this language through regular course enrollment or EM credit.
Prereq: 1102.01, or 4 sem cr hrs of 1102.51 or 1102.61.
Text: Netzwerk A2

German 1101.61 • 1102.61 • 1103.61 
Self-paced Distance Learning option

GE Foreign Language course 
(1-4 credit units) | Autumn Semester 2021

German 2101 • Texts and Contexts I: Contemporary German Language, Culture and Society

Uskokovic | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021
Heck | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

Development of communication skills and knowledge about recent social, cultural, and political developments in German speaking countries through texts, media and film; CEFR level A2/B1. Closed to native speakers of this language.
Prereq: 1103.01 or 1103.51, or equiv, or permission of instructor. No audit. 

German 2102 • Texts and Contexts II: 20th-Century German Language, History and Culture

Heck | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021
Heck | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

Continued development of communication skills; gain an understanding of major social and cultural developments in 20th century German history through texts, media, film. CEFR level B1/B2. Closed to native speakers of this language.
Prereq: 2101 or equiv, or permission of instructor. FL Admis Cond course.
Text:
Damals war es Friedrich (Hans Peter Richter), ISBN: 978-3-423-07800-9.

German 2254 • Grimms' Fairy Tales and their Afterlives

Richards | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

In the present DL course, we will be trying to understand the meaning and the enduring appeal of one of Germany’s greatest successes in the realm of cultural exportation—a book whose circulation figures are exceeded in Western culture only by those of the Bible, namely, Grimms’ fairy tales.  This will mean asking a series of interlocking questions.  How did the fairy tales come about?  What were the aims of their compilers?  How do the tales play to those aims?  How do they exceed them?  How do the tales tend to work structurally?  What have their social and psychological effects been?  How have they helped shape—and been reshaped by—popular cultures outside Germany, like popular culture in the U.S.  In reckoning with these questions, we will be enlisting the help of a parade of great critics, including Vladimir Propp, Bruno Bettelheim, Erich Auerbach, and Jack Zipes.
Required Texts:
Jack Zipes, The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm
Assigned films will be available at drm.osu.edu
Other readings will be posted on Carmen.
All works in English translation; taught in English.
Repeatable to a maximum of 9 cr hrs. GE lit course.

German 2350 • Introduction to German Studies

Byram | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

This course provides a broad introduction to German history and culture and to the field of German Studies. Taught in English, it is an ideal course for students considering a major or minor in German, or for those with a general interest in German-language history and culture.

The course will have four components

• lectures on history (social, cultural, political, and linguistic)
• lectures on contemporary German-language society and culture
• discussion about works of literature, film, philosophy, art, music, etc.
• introductions to methods for studying language and culture

In the end, students will have a broad overview of German-language history and culture and a catalog of questions that will include tools for analyzing everything from medieval sagas to television shows, political speeches to the words they use.
Taught in English.
Required books (in recommended English editions):
Das Niebelungenlied: The Lay of the Niebelungs.Oxford Classics, ISBN 978-0199238545
The Sorrows of Young Werther. Oxford Classics, ISBN: 978-0199583027
These books are also available as open-access editions, or contact instructor for information about German or German-English editions.
Recommended book:
Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany, ISBN: 978-0521540711

German 3101 • Texts and Contexts III: Historical Perspectives

Strawser | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

Development of intermediate/advanced communication skills; broadening of cultural and historical knowledge through interaction with literary and non-literary materials informed by historical perspective; CEFR level B2. Closed to to native speakers of this language.
Prereq: 2102 or equiv, or permission of instructor.

German 3102 • News and Views: Conversations about Current Issues in the German-Speaking World

Taleghani-Nikazm | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

course details tba

German Majors - note that you can take 3102 in autumn as one of your core 3000-level courses!

German 3252.02 • The Holocaust in Literature and Film

Richards | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

Why, faced with a historical catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, would we devote a class to film and literature about it, rather than to “the facts”?

HOW YOU SAY THINGS MATTERS

Come find out why.

Taught in English. Prereq: Not open to students with credit for Yiddish 3399.
GE lit and diversity global studies course.

German 3254H • Representations and Memory of the Holocaust in Film

Holub | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

GE Visual and Performing Arts, GE Diversity: Global Studies, Honors Course

Students will view, discuss, and examine major filmic representations of the Holocaust from several countries from the 1940s through the 1990s. Students will learn how these films have contributed to our understanding of a complex phenomenon of WWII and how the directors have coped with the thorny issues of representing something that many people consider to be unrepresentable. Taught in English.
Prereq: Honors, and Soph, Jr, or Sr standing, or permission of instructor.

German 3603 • Translation 1

Reitter | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

German-English/English-German translation; focus on everyday language; emphasis on improvement of grammar and development of vocabulary; discussion of common translation techniques, introduction to theories of translation.
Prereq: 2102 or equiv, or permission of instructor.

German 4300 • Senior Seminar in German: Culture Studies, Social and Intellectual History (German)

Byram | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

How have German speakers over time understood their place in nature—or outside it?

Today, human activity is affecting natural systems at every level, so understanding people’s answers to this question is crucially important. The question also leads to a fundamental question of the humanities: what it means to be human.

Our class will investigate evolving beliefs about the relationship between humanity and nature by analyzing German art, literature, film, philosophy, scientific statements, political manifestos, and social media. At the same time, students will be guided in developing a research project and presenting it for a public audience.

At the end of the semester, students will be familiar with the broad history of Western thinking about the relationship between humans and nature and will understand the questions being raised about this relationship today. They will also have learned methods for and practiced skills associated with research in the humanities.

Taught in German.

Scandinavian 

Professor Kaplan is on sabbatical 2021-22

Swedish 1101 • Swedish I   DL

Risko | 4 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

GE Foreign Language course
Introduction to language and culture of Sweden with emphasis on the acquisition of basic communication skills in a cultural context. Closed to native speakers of this language.
Prereq: Not open to students with 2 or more years of study in this language in high school, except by permission of dept.
GE for lang course.
Text: Althén, Anette. Mål 1 Lärobok (textbook with CD); Althén, Anette. Mål Övningsbok (workbook). Both Stockholm: Natur och Kultur (2007 edition).

Swedish 1103 • Swedish III    DL

Risko | 4 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

GE Foreign Language course
Development of skills necessary for the independent use of Swedish. Discussions, presentations, writing and listening/viewing activities address topics of contemporary Sweden.
Prereq: Grade of C- or better in 1102.
GE for lang course.
Text: Althén, Anette. Mål 2 Lärobok (textbook with CD); Althén, Anette. Mål Övningsbok (workbook). Both Stockholm: Natur och Kultur (2007 edition).

Yiddish 1101 • Yiddish 1

CANCELLED!  

Yiddish 1101 is an introduction to the Yiddish language and Ashkenazic culture. The course is designed to help you learn to communicate in culturally appropriate ways in Yiddish. We aim to help you develop balanced skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. At the end of the semester you should be able to listen to simple conversations or stories and understand them, read and understand short texts, engage in brief conversations on everyday topics, and write short essays on familiar topics using the structures and vocabulary you have learned. In addition, you will learn about Ashkenazic culture in Europe, Israel, and the United States.
Required Textbook
In eynem: a communicative approach to Yiddish. Authors: Asya Vaisman Schulman, Jordan Brown, Michael Yashinsky. (Accessed through Yiddish Book Center website.)

Yiddish 3371 • Yiddish Literature in Translation 

CANCELLED!  

GE lit and diversity global studies course
Reading, analysis, and discussion of representative works and of the development of major movements and genres in Yiddish literature.

Yiddish 3399 • Holocaust in Yiddish and Ashkenazic Literature

CANCELLED!  

GE lit and diversity global studies course
Reading and analysis of texts, films and music pertaining to the topic of the Holocaust, the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against European Jewry, and its impact on Ashkenazic-Jewish civilization.

Six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
85% of them spoke Yiddish.
Let’s hear what they had to say.

In speaking about the Holocaust, people often say that we should “Never Forget” – but what do we choose to remember? The genocide of European Jewry during the Holocaust enacted a horrific human toll and devastated Ashkenazic civilization in Europe. An emphasis on Yiddish, the language spoken by ten million Ashkenazic Jews on the eve of World War II, demands that we focus on victims, survivors, and resistors, rather than perpetrators or liberators. This course puts Jews at the center of the story of their own suffering. It delves into messy emotions, including anger, which writers might not have felt comfortable expressing in a language that was easily accessible to non-Jews. 

Yiddish culture went through a renaissance in the early twentieth century, which was cut cruelly short by the Holocaust. Many of the same cultural activists who participated in pre-war Jewish life used Yiddish to confront the horror that engulfed them during World War II. By examining works of Yiddish literature about the Holocaust, this class will examine how Yiddish speakers confronted the destruction of Jewish communities in Europe. From the historians of the Oyneg Shabes Archive in the Warsaw Ghetto to the Auschwitz Sonderkommando, from Yiddish writers in America to post-war film makers who use Yiddish dialogue, this class engages with a variety of powerful perspectives on catastrophe and considers the ways that literature and film can help us negotiate some of the most painful moments in history.

This class fulfills the Literature and Diversity Global Studies GE. 
No knowledge of Yiddish required.
 

German 6300 • Marx and Marxian Cultural Criticism - Introduction to Intellectual History and Cultural Studies

Reitter | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

In this course we will track one of the most important developments in modern German intellectual: Marx’s broad influence on cultural criticism. We will begin by reading key texts by Marx himself and then engage with the works of such seminal thinkers as Georg Lukacs, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Rosa Luxemburg, and Ernst Bloch, and Joseph Vogel.

Prereq: Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

7301 in the FRIT department • Introduction to Teaching and Learning German at the College Level

Prof. W. Wong | 4 credit units | Mondays 1:00-3:45 pm | Autumn Semester 2021

Developing an understanding of communicative language teaching and second language acquisition as it applies to German. Overview of instructional strategies and techniques for various modalities.
Prereq: Open to Graduate Teaching Associates enrolled in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures; all others by permission of instructor.

German 6601 • Teaching Practicum

Taleghani-Nikazm | 1 credit unit |  Autumn Semester 2021

This course is for GTAs who are teaching a 1000-level German language class. The course provides graduate students with instruction and practice in designing and implementing instructional materials for their undergraduate classes. It offers best practices in creating tests, developing speaking portfolios, designing culture components, and becoming reflective practitioners.
Prereq: Grad standing, and permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 10 cr hrs. This course is graded S/U.

German 8400 • The Hidden Dialectic 2.0?:
Race, Art, Media, and Cultural Politics in the Long Adenauer Era

Davidson | 3 credit units | Wednesdays 3:00 - 5:45 pm | Autumn Semester 2021

In After the Great Divide, a groundbreaking collection of essays for twentieth-century cultural analysis, Andreas Huyssen argues that a symbiotic relationship linked the avant-garde and mass culture in the Weimar era. Rather than standing in polar opposition to one another, seemingly esoteric art and popular forms were mutually imbricated through technology, a relationship that Huyssen describes as “The Hidden Dialectic.” He then uses that relationship to ground a claim that the cultural movements of the latter twentieth century become, as Rosalind Kraus glosses it, “a continuation of a variety of projects launched by the historical avant-garde” in the first third of the century, thus providing an alternative between the “French” embrace (a la Lyotard / Baudrillard) and the “German” rejection (a la Habermas) of postmodernism vis-à-vis modernism.

In reading Huyssen’s collection, one notes that it begins with the Weimar Republic (and its perceived antithesis in the Third Reich) and then springs to the mid-1960s. It dismisses the two decades between the end of the war and the radicalization following the Great Coalition (1966) as a simple retrenching of conservative culture, echoing a sentiment that undergirds much German Studies scholarship treating West Germany (FRG). This is certainly not completely unjustified: for example, Alfred Andersch’s declarations about the resistance to Nazism inherent in (German) high literature and in the post-WWII European avant-grade, declarations that became foundational for the Gruppe ’47, exemplify this conservative move.

For Huyssen, the historical avant-garde’s “technological imagination” had hoped to combat the mechanized terror deeply rooted in capitalism, epitomized by WWI, and then embraced by bourgeois culture during Weimar; however, similar artistic impulses became coopted following WWII despite at times addressing the real, seemingly unfathomable atrocities of the death camps and atomic bomb. German 8400 will examine another concern that emerged from beneath that restoration of high culture amidst the rubble, namely that of the masked racial underpinnings of German-cum-European arts and media culture as democratizing vehicles.

This course posits that race might mediate a second “hidden dialectic” beneath a more overt, yet less radical, address to technology. Exploring the interwoven dynamic of art and popular media in the “long Adenauer period” (1949-66) may provide insights to conceptualize twentieth-century cultural history in Europe more fully. Starting with a general overview of arts culture in the twenty years following the Nazi era, the course begins with a range of tensions, contradictions, and unspoken alliances within the “high” and the “low.” In the second portion of the semester, we will home in on several examples that concretize the cross-media connections and complications in film, music (especially the discourses around European jazz), and visual art. Race becomes a particularly fertile site for investigation here, at times as an overt element, at others as a determinant absence, and, in the most interesting cases, as the shifting terrain on which the mediation and challenge of art take place. The final third of the courses will be devoted to developing individual areas of expertise and projects.

“The Hidden Dialectic 2.0?” presupposes no extensive background in film and visual arts or music; however, those with expertise in these areas are encouraged to contribute. The course is open to all graduate students; knowledge of German language and history are useful but not essential. The class’ makeup will determine the language of instruction and materials.

Prereq: Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

German 8600 • Early Modern Nuremberg - Seminar in Seminar in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

Grotans | Fridays 2:15-5:00pm | 3 credit units | Autumn Semester 2021

[ capacity for this seminar is limited to 8 students due to library room limit ]

This seminar has several goals: 1) to provide a general overview of the post-medieval history of the German language and the emergence of a modern standard language; 2) to learn to read a dialect of Early New High German and to discuss its structure and lexicon; 3) to learn more about the history and culture of Early Modern Germany in general; and 4) to gain practice in archival research, paleography and codicology. The basis for our investigation will be readings from a unique, handwritten sixteenth-century chronicle of the free imperial city of Nuremberg, the unique copy of which is held by OSU’s Special Collections in MS MR 15. In addition to providing a wealth of raw linguistic evidence, the text is also particularly interesting from the perspective of social history and includes rich descriptions of guild life, festivals, gender inequity, natural disasters, illness, religious movements and discrimination, crime and punishment as well as contemporary political events.

Students may choose to write a seminar paper or to take a written exam at the end of the course.

A good reading knowledge of German is required (although we will be translating into English). Lectures can be held either in English or German, according to students’ preference

Prereq: Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

German 8500 • Doctoral Colloquium

Reitter | 1 credit unit | Autumn Semester 2021

Regular student-driven discussions of ongoing dissertations, current topics in the professional field, and new research approaches to Germanic Studies.
Prereq: Successful completion of Ph.D. candidacy exams or permission from Director of Graduate Studies and instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 9 cr hrs. This course is graded S/U. Admis Cond course.